


Thanks! Fiction Pieces

by Falcolmreynolds



Category: Original Work
Genre: Thank You!, check my tumblr for what this is, donation thanks fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24717544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcolmreynolds/pseuds/Falcolmreynolds
Summary: These are all the pieces I've written on tumblr in thanks to people who have dedicated their time and effort to making the world a better place. You can message me about it (tumblr dragonsateyourtoast, pillowfort falcolmreynolds) anytime.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. The Revenant - Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to tumblr user a-joe-in-the-bush! He wondered if I could write something following up on my short story "The Revenant." I have obliged.

Up at the northern pass leading to the summer pastures, a shepherd’s crook stands propped between three stones. A lantern hangs from the tip, never falling even in the strongest winds.

Last summer, the shepherd’s son sent his flock back to safety, south of those green fields. He did not come with them. People had vanished in the night, died in the dark, and returned only in body to their homes, battered and broken. The shepherd’s son was the only one who never came back.

We don’t know what he did. He disappeared. But days after he did, those who had yet to be found came stumbling down out of the mountains, confused but alive, dusty and bruised. They didn’t remember what had happened to them; just vague images of stones and mud and nightfall, sunset splayed out over the peaks above like a painting. Memories of voices, one strong and unwavering, one rasping like dry leather pulled over stone. They remember the grip of strong hands, pulling them free of the stones and dirt, free of the cloying darkness around them. Burying them in reverse, opening them to the sky, to the world, that they had been taken from. Returning them to it, and to us. They don't remember the faces. They don't remember who was there. They can only assume.

We don’t know what the shepherd boy did. But the thing that stalked the village only wanted him, and we let him go. We never protected him. But in the end he protected us.

The north pastures are blessed, we say. We don’t send anyone there; the grass may be lush and green, but we dare not disturb the silence, the color that coats the world there, a breath from being heavenly. We do not walk where he might still; we don’t want to disturb him. We don’t go past the crook in the northern pass.

We may not be able to graze in that pasture, but we haven’t lost a single sheep since his death, and every lamb survived foaling this spring.

We don’t go past the shepherd’s crook that stands alone, planted in the northern pass. We don’t want to tarnish holy ground.


	2. Cursed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to SkylarkLanding for this suggestion!
> 
> Fill of a prompt from tumblr blog writing-prompt-s: It is impossible to erase a curse, but it is possible to trade it with someone else. You’ve been wandering for years, searching for someone willing to trade curses with you, but never suspected it would happen like this.

Not many people are unlucky enough to get hit with a real curse. A true curse, a curse that writes itself into your bones and blood, not some surface-level scuff on your soul. Those happen all the time; little things like a higher likelihood to stub your toe, or a few extra minutes of searching when you’ve lost your keys.

To be cursed with a true curse is different. It’s something that you feel in your lungs when it hits you, which screams like static in your mind when it activates. It lies dormant like a disease, letting you forget it exists occasionally, until the time comes for it to rear its ugly head and it spits venom into your life once again.

You can’t get rid of a real curse. The little ones? You can polish them away, or pay a witch to get rid of them, or whatever. But the real ones… those are powered by something greater than just a little bit of malice. Those ones aren’t just throwaway statements of “I hope you always forget about your tea” or little sigils drawn on paper and burned to ash. These ones are borne of blood.

I used to sing at a church. I’ve long since abandoned the church, after they told me I was evil for a good number of things, including my curse. I didn’t even think it was that bad, at first.

When I speak, things come to me. Animals, mostly. Sometimes it’s plants. Insects and spiders and stuff are the biggest problem. Birds are the next worst. No matter what I do, if I utter a single syllable, I am swarmed in an instant with everything alive around me except other people. I laughed on a lakeshore once - the fish died when we were trying to shove them back into the water. I sighed too loudly once, on a wet night; I’d never seen so many worms.

There are online boards for people who want to swap curses. I know you can do it - curses don’t like to be destroyed, but they love to hop around. They’re kind of sentient; they like to see new things. Sometimes, if you don’t give them what they want, they’ll evolve, force you to carry them harder. Mine is pretty dormant; I never speak, but it doesn’t cause problems. It can feel my misery.

I’m not going to get into what got me cursed in the first place. It was an accident, and it wasn’t even my fault, and I’m marked forever in more ways than one.

July, 2014. I sat in my room, reading a book. I don’t remember what it was. One of my friends messaged me, asking about a movie that was coming out, and while I was checking movie times I saw someone had pinged me in the curse boards.

Curious, I visited. I’ve had this curse for twelve years, mind you, and never been able to find anyone willing to switch me. It’s just too inconvenient.

But, there in the board, was a message in a five year old thread I’d made. It read:

“Hi! I saw your notice. I’m a wildlife biologist in Arkansas. I’m cursed too, and I think that you would be the perfect person to switch curses with, if you’re willing. It seems like you’re an active member of the forums, but it’s been a while; do you still have the same curse you did before? I’d really like to swap you for it, if that’s still possible.”

 _What?_ I stared at it, uncomprehending, until I finally messaged her directly through the site. “Thanks for your interest,” I told her. “What curse do you have, so I can know what I might be getting into?”

“Nothing too terrible,” she wrote back. “When I speak, whatever I say comes out in a different language. I never know which language it’s going to be, either, and if I stop speaking or take a breath, well, it switches. It’s really a nuisance if I’m trying to communicate with people! Yours seems to be that you can’t make any sound at all; being able to laugh or speak without consequences would be an improvement for you, right?”

“It would,” I wrote back. “And it would mean you have a lot less freedom in what you can say. Why do you want my curse?”

“I can’t explain it,” she said, “I guess I’ll have to tell you if it works.”

We agreed to meet up about six hours from where I lived, at the halfway point between our houses. I wasn’t working at the time - it’s difficult to hold a job when you can’t speak or your building suddenly reveals how many rats are in it - so I gathered what I needed and left the next morning.

Six hours. I had six hours while driving to wonder why she would choose to make her life worse, by preventing herself from even laughing. I couldn’t fathom why. Did she _want_ every living thing to swarm her at all times? I say swarm - I mean it. Just because the curse brought the animals to me didn’t make them friendly. I’d been bitten, stung, pecked, and scratched more times than I could count.

Whatever. It probably wasn’t my place to ask. I hadn’t asked her how she had gotten cursed, she hadn’t asked me, and I wasn’t going to ask her what she wanted it for if she wasn’t willing to tell me.

I pulled into the designated place - a restaurant on a tiny little highway exit in the middle of nowhere. I stood next to my car and waited.

About fifteen minutes after I’d arrived, a car pulled into the parking lot a few spaces away from mine and shut off. A woman got out - probably about thirty, with dark brown hair and brown skin, warm green eyes shining out from her face. She glanced over, saw me, and her face lit up. “Zdravo!” she called, and I knew it was her - that wasn’t a language I recognized. I nodded in response.

She pulled out her phone as she came over, and opened up a notes app. I opened mine too, watching, and she wrote down. “Songbird, right?”

“That’s me,” I wrote back, showing my screen to her. “Got everything we need?”

“Yeah, I visited a witch before I left home; that’s what I did with the rest of yesterday.” She set down a bag that had been slung over her shoulder and pulled out a shiny green box. She opened it, pulling out a length of white silk, and held out a hand. I held out mine, and she grasped my forearm; I took hold of hers.

Together, we wound the white silk around our hands and arms, binding us together, and tied it on the bottom, which is a lot harder than you’d expect. Then she looked me in the eye, still brimming with excitement. “Bist du so weit?” she asked, and then sighed and rolled her eyes. “Är du färdig?”

That still didn’t make sense, but I got the sense she was asking me if I was ready. I nodded sharply.

She began to speak. I didn’t understand it, of course. The language must’ve changed at least four times as she was trying to talk, and I couldn’t get a word of it, though I kind of understood some of what sounded like maybe French. I did catch her name, though: Maria Coombs. She finished, and looked up to me, expectantly.

My turn. This was going to be rough. I opened my mouth, swallowing; I really, really didn’t talk often. “My name’s Sage Lawson. I willingly take on to myself the burden this stranger bears, so that they might carry mine in turn.”

Above, I saw a flock of starlings divert swiftly in its path; a fly bounced off my face. “I give to this person the magic that has plagued me. I take upon myself the magic that has plagued her. Together, we give to each other.”

Nothing seemed to happen, but the starlings fluttered into a nearby tree and began to squawk at each other, ignoring me. I looked warily up at them.

“Is that it, then?” Maria said, and gasped, her eyes going wide. She clamped a hand over her mouth. The birds overhead hopped downwards into the branches surrounding us, eyes black and wary.

I hastily unbound our hands. I was still too nervous to talk. Maria picked up her phone. “Say something!” she tapped out, and showed it to me, grinning.

I rubbed my hands together. “Antoka,” I said, still feeling my voice rasp in my throat, and paused. I’d meant to say “sure,” but my mouth had just… said something else. The feeling was uncomfortable, to say the least. “… أعتقد أنه نجح.”

Maria clapped her hands together. She was beaming, brighter than I’d ever seen anybody smile. I ran my hand over my mouth, shaking my head. I could speak… though I wouldn’t make any sense. Whatever. I could work with this. I could work with this!

“Thank you,” Maria typed back, still beaming. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

I didn’t, really, but she was so happy, I couldn’t help but smile and even give a little breath of a laugh. That was more than I could’ve done before.

I handed Maria the silk back. She took it, replacing it in the box, and put it back in her bag. Already, she was humming.

You could hum, I remembered. You just couldn’t open your mouth and speak, or laugh, or sigh too loudly. Humming was the only thing that had saved me from despair after I’d been cursed.

“Maria,” I called, as she walked back over to her car with a bounce in her step, and she turned, eyebrows raised.

“Hmm?” she said, without opening her mouth.

“Ευχαριστούμε,” I said, with a smile.

Maria may not have known the language, but she understood a thank you when she heard one. She beamed at me, waved, and got back into her car.

Three months later, I got a message from Maria, the wildlife biologist living in Arkansas. It was an email that she’d sent after getting my email address from my account on the curse forums, where I’d been busy figuring out how to work with my new curse.

“Thanks,” it read, “for all the help. You have no idea what this means to me, and to the world. Now we can do something good.”

Attached were two pictures. One was of her on a canoe, floating through some kind of forested swampy area, and the other was a photograph - in full color and perfect clarity - of an ivory-billed woodpecker.


	3. Calliope's Tale: Queen of the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to tumblr user owl-in-a-top-hat!!

Her name was Miyei, and she was the queen of the sea.

No nation could capture her. No navy could break her fleet's formation. There was no ship upon the seas of the world that could - or would - best her.

This was in the old days, before the Midnight Sun and Calliope, before the Crown and their vile trade, before even Buroni Hakir and its law of fealty. This was when those that could conquer the waves were considered strong as the gods themselves, able to tame the water beneath and the wind about.

Her name was Miyei.

A fleet of five hundred ships, she had. A fleet that no coastal village could stand up against. No port could deny them. They could blockade a nation if they wanted, and vanish into the Topaz Islands the next day, invisible amongst the thousands of tiny stones jutting from the sea, the coral reefs that lurked beneath them. The Islands belonged to Miyei and her fleet, and everyone knew it. No one could navigate it like she did. No one had ever mapped its intricate formations.

Inside the islands, Miyei was safe. Until she wasn't.

Perhaps it was her hubris and disrespect that brought Kulari's wrath down upon them, or perhaps it was just chance that coaxed a hurricane from the southeastern waters and sent it roaring to the coast in a day and a half. Whatever the truth, even Miyei's seers did not sense its approach, not until it was too late. The hurricane burst over the Islands like an angry god, ripping the trees from their stones and ripping the fleet apart. She mobilized them as soon as it appeared on the horizon, but they weren't fast enough. Perhaps half the fleet escaped. The other half was too slow to run, or they thought the Islands would shelter them. That was not true - the Islands simply gave the storm something to batter them against.

Miyei's flagship, the _Blue Bone,_ was one of the ones caught behind. When the hurricane came, it tore her ship to shreds beneath her and threw her into the ocean like a ragdoll.

_This is it,_ Miyei realized, as she saw the stormlight fading above her, the water dragging her down. _I will be no more._

To her surprise, she awoke some time later, laying atop a flat piece of wood in the water. When she scrubbed the salt from her stinging eyes, she realized she was afloat on half of a ship's deck, in the calm, cloudy blue water of the Islands. She didn't try to stand, just squinted around at the world.

There was something watching her at the edge of the deck.

Miyei scrambled back from a creature with eyes so dark brown they were almost black and skin almost as dark as its eyes, head resting on its crossed forearms. "Stay back!" she shrieked, grabbing for something, anything - a piece of metal tied to the deck, anything. She held it out in front of her like a sword, shaking hands pointing the sharp tip towards the creature.

She'd seen merids before. But never this close. "Stay away from me!" she shouted, and the merid, finally, slid backwards into the water and disappeared.

Miyei took stock of her surroundings. Ship deck, metal piece, and a few of the islands in sight. But she didn't have any way to paddle her raft to them, and she didn't know if she would be able to swim all the way to one of the nearer blots of rock. For several hours, she tried to construct something, all the while well aware of the blistering heat of the sun and the lack of water.

Towards midday she sat down. "I am going to die here," she murmured, and wondered if she ought to just let Zzoriel take her now for the reef.

A laugh came from beside her. She sat upright, eyes wide, and saw again the merid beside her. "Stay-" she started, but the merid interrupted her by pulling a parrotfish out of the water and tossing it onto the deck.

The merid - mermaid, from the looks of it - just watched as Miyei carefully stole forward and touched the fish. It was dead, freshly so. "I..." Merids couldn't speak; that was ridiculous. Still... "Is this... a gift?"

"Is it?" The mermaid said, and disappeared again.

Stunned, Miyei sat down hard on the salt-crusted wood. _Xikaal grant me the breath in my body and salt in my tears, what?_ she thought. _But... I've never heard a merid speak before! They, they can't..._

No. Now was not the time for pondering. She didn't have a fire to cook it with, but a fish was a fish, and the one thing that hasn't been torn from her in the hurricane was her knife, a coral-handled iron blade that gleamed bright silver in the sun. She stripped as much flesh from the fish as she could and savored it.

By the evening, she still hadn’t found a way to get herself to the nearest island in the chain. She didn’t even know where in the chain she was, though she had a vague idea - she knew the shapes of individual rocks poking above the water. But... she couldn’t reach them.

At nightfall, she waited to see if the mermaid would come back. When she spotted a flash of brown under the water, she went still and silent, until the mermaid’s dark head poked up above the swell.

“Listen,” Miyei said, speaking quickly in case she darted off again. “I am a pirate queen. Anything you want, I can give to you, if you get me back to the islands.”

“A queen,” the mermaid scoffed. “Really? With what nation?”

_She can speak! She can really speak! Where did she learn?!_ _Never mind, that doesn’t matter. “_ I’m powerful enough to build my fleet back up if I can get to an island with enough wood and sticks to build a raft back to one of my strongholds.”

The mermaid watched, leaning on the edge of the raft. It tipped perilously; Miyei swayed to keep her balance. “Sure,” the mermaid drawled. “Whatever.”

And she was gone. Miyei sat down again, frustrated, but she didn’t come back that night.

The pattern repeated the next day. The mermaid gave her a fish; Miyei tried in vain to make some kind of sail, or paddle or _something_ that could get her moving. But one of the things that made the Topaz Islands hers was her wind-magic sailors, the ones that could power the ships through this unnaturally calm area, usually so untouched by Kulari’s breath. There was no breeze to sail by.

That night, the mermaid came back. “You must take me to an island,” Miyei ordered her, rage bubbling in her chest. “You must!”

“Or what?” the mermaid asked. “You’ll kill me? Out here, it’s you who’s in danger. I’m doing fine.”

Miyei seethed, but she was right. “You will take me to one of my strongholds, or I will kill you,” she snapped.

The mermaid stared at her, then shrugged and slid under the water. Miyei this time charged forwards to the edge of the raft, that sharp piece of metal in her hand, and stabbed it down into the water. Nothing. Of course not.

Then the mermaid’s hand closed around the metal and tugged hard, and Miyei overbalanced and was dragged into the sea. The water was cool to the touch, and she automatically shut her mouth and held her breath, trying to right herself - but strong hands grabbed onto her and held her in place, one over her mouth, one around her torso and arms, locking them down. The mermaid was behind her. Miyei knew instantly that she could not escape, but she struggled anyway.

“You’re foolish,” the mermaid told her, voice clear in the water, somehow. She just held Miyei, below the surface. Miyei knew she could hold her breath for four minutes, but she hadn’t been prepared, and she knew the merid could out last her. “Do you want to stay down here with me? Is that it?”

_No!_ Miyei struggled, shaking her head.

“Then get out of my ocean.” The mermaid released her. Miyei flailed, then kicked upwards until she broke the surface, gasping for breath, and pulled herself back up onto the wooden raft.

The next day, at midmorning, she sat down on the planks and called out, “What are you doing?”

No answer. Miyei narrowed her eyes. “I know you can hear me,” she shouted, voice ringing over the waves. “What’s your plot, here? Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

The mermaid surfaced next to the ship and leaned on it again. “I want you to stop ruining my islands,” she said, conversationally. “You have cannons and swords. My people do not, except of ocean glass and stone and coral. We can’t beat you in a fight. So we’re forced to negotiate with you, except you people won’t listen unless we make you listen. It’s an opportunity.” She shrugged.

Miyei glared at her. “Well, fine, you have my attention,” she snapped.

“Good. Promise to leave the islands alone forever, and I’ll take you to a stronghold. Then you can clear your people out and leave.”

That... was absurd. But Miyei knew she wouldn’t be getting out unless she did this. Besides, she could just lie. “Deal,” she said.

“That was surprisingly easy,” the mermaid said, watching her face. “Too easy. You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not!”

“And there, too.” The mermaid shook her head. “That’s not a deal if you mean to break it. You just want to get back up on a ship where you’re safe away from me, and then you’ll continue parading around. Well, I’ll tell you this: we asked Kulari for help once, and we can do it again. If she gets tired of helping us, she’ll bother Athu about it. Then what? Then what happens to you, pirate queen?”

Miyei glowered at her. “I can’t leave the Islands,” she said. “They’re where my fleet needs to hide. It’s where we live.”

“I can tell you right now, we were here first,” the mermaid said, shaking her head. “We were here first, and we don’t care for you moving in and saying it’s yours.”

“I can’t just make them leave!”

“Yes, you can. You made them come here. You can make them leave here.”

“It’s not that simple!” _Why am I even entertaining this thought? This creature wants me to destroy my entire empire!_ “You can’t just make people leave.”

“Well, I hope you figure out a way to do that,” the mermaid said. “When you do, I’ll be ready to tow you back to a stronghold, so you can enact your plan. Good luck.” And she disappeared again.

Miyei stamped her foot on the deck and swore several times, loudly. Curse this stupid merid! Curse that stupid storm! None of this was - none of this should have happened! Wretched, horrible merids, lurking underneath the waves and causing problems and now trying to _take her Islands from her!_ No - she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave. She’d just have to - she’d just have to lie better.

She waited several hours, then called out again. “Fine,” she snarled. “I hate it. And I hate you. But I like living better. Do you hear me? I’ll adhere to your horrible conditions if you’ll only let me go!”

A disturbance in the water. Miyei strode over to the edge of the raft and stared down into the water. “Do you hear me?” she again shouted.

A hand shot out and clasped around her ankle, and with a shriek, Miyei was again dragged down into the water. She clawed at the boards, but all she did was get a splinter in one hand before she was dragged into the water.

The mermaid stared at her, holding her by the shoulder. “You just cannot bring yourself to be a good person,” she said, sounding irritated. “So I’ll have to force you to be one. I was really hoping maybe you’d just have the decency to listen and realize there are real people you’ve invaded here, but I should have known from your past habits that you’re not capable of such a thing, so I’ll have to play tour guide and hope my land can speak for itself. You disgust me.” With that, she shook her hair out of her face and sang out a few sharp, clear notes that made Miyei’s vision blur and go black. She felt her body involuntarily breathe in and shrieked - this creature was trying to drown her! - but the water just felt like thick, humid air, rushing into her lungs, and out again, taking her air bubbles with it. It stung, and hurt in her throat and nose, but after a few moments, she was forced to accept that it wasn’t killing her.

The mermaid was watching her when she opened her eyes. “If you climb out of the water, you’ll drown,” the merid said casually. “So I really wouldn’t recommend trying to get away.”

If it had been humans she’d been negotiating with, Miyei would’ve tried to escape. But this was a merid. And she’d done something to Miyei, something magical, and there was no way Miyei could count on her magic _not_ killing her if she tried to break free. So she glowered at her and said nothing.

“Good! Great. Now, come on.” The mermaid grabbed hold of Miyei’s wrist and immediately towed her away from the raft.

There was so much more beneath the Islands than she’d realized. Miyei could swim, of course, and was familiar with reefs, but she’d never been one to go exploring around in them like some folks did. The seabed here went deeper than she expected in caves and crevasses, and the coral covered secret clearings of white sand and green seagrass. Her vision was unexpectedly clear down here, peering through the water, and the sunlight that reached down showed an extraordinary number of fish and corals hiding on and in the rocks.

But more impressive than that were the merids. Miyei had rarely ever seen a merid in the Topaz Islands - she’d assumed they were too shallow for them. But here, she saw them everywhere. Watching from behind rocky outcroppings, cloaked in the green sea-grass sprouting from the sand beds, tucked underneath a spur of coral just peering out at her. They all stared at her, and each had an expression of mixed curiosity and... hatred?

_Why do they look at me like that?_

_“_ They hate you because they were here first, and you and your fleet moved in and started destroying everything,” the mermaid told her, conversationally. “You drop your anchors on our coral. You catch all the fish and leave none for us. You destroy things we create without even noticing, and you do not listen to us. These are where we raise our children. And you just sail on in and wreck the place. Can you see why we have a problem?”

Miyei tried to speak. To her surprise, she could, though it was hard, forcing water sluggishly through her throat. Her lungs weren’t used to this kind of effort. “Why... didn’t you mention this... before?”

“You don’t think we tried?” the mermaid snapped. “We tried! But nobody listens to _sea monsters._ I had to learn your horrible language in order to even get you to listen.”

“You could’ve... talked to us before.”

“No, I couldn’t have. You would’ve captured me in a net and put me in a tank for entertainment. Absolutely not.”

That... may have been true. Miyei winced. You don’t use people for entertainment. _But I didn’t know they were people,_ she thought, and grimaced, and said nothing.

“You look uncomfortable,” the mermaid said, with a kind of grim satisfaction. “Good! You should be.”

She continued to drag Miyei after her, downwards, towards a large hollow in the rocks. It led to a soft sandy area, where several mer-matrons carefully watched a few chubby, awkward-looking blobs go floating about. Baby mermaids, Miyei realized, staring at them. They were... very strange looking. Weirdly similar to human children, except for the gills and the heavy, fleshy tail.

“Oh, yes, we have children,” the mermaid commented. “I know, astonishing. It’s almost like we’re people who come from somewhere.”

“I get it,” Miyei grumbled. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t.” The mermaid turned, staring at her. “You _don’t_ get it. We live here. You tried to steal our home from us, and you’ve been succeeding this whole time. You _need to leave here._ “

“But where... do we go?” Miyei asked.

“That,” the mermaid sniffed, “is not my problem. There are other islands to live on that _don’t_ have our ancestral birthing grounds underneath them. Go use those.”

The mer-matrons had gathered together in a little group, warily watching Miyei and the mermaid. The mermaid sighed and called out something in a searing, hissing language that made Miyei’s ears hurt; the mer-matrons responded, their voices deeper and stronger, and stayed where they were.

“What’s your name?” Miyei asked.

“Ah, finally!” The mermaid turned back to her. “Finally you ask! I was really wondering how long it would take you to realize I probably have a name.”

“I get it, alright?” Miyei snapped. “There’s no reason to keep on me like this. I get it!”

The mermaid glared at her. “You couldn’t pronounce my name if you tried,” she snapped. “It’s Skreshkaiurhsra. You can call me... let’s go with Resh.”

Miyei took a deep breath (of... water. It still unnerved her) and let it out. He crew on the _Blue Bone_ answered to her because she was just and fair to them, and because she punished anyone who broke her rules. If - _if_ \- she got out of this mess, she knew, she’d have to adhere to the merids’ demands, or face the same punishment.

And... she didn’t realize there were kids down here. Children.

“Resh,” she said. “Right. I’m Miyei. So to get home, what do you need me to do?”

* * *

Resh wouldn’t let her go that easily. She casually assured Miyei that the magic wouldn’t wear off any time soon and told her to help out. The storm had ripped some of the reef apart - the merids were trying to repair it as best as they could.

It wasn’t natural, Miyei was told. The reef was cultivated, kept at its most beautiful and healthy, by the merids who lived here. Some were here all year round to maintain it, and others came and went, coming here to give birth to their children, leaving later once they were grown. “Like turtles,” she said, “but, you know, awake in the thoughts.”

Awake in the thoughts. The thing that Miyei had thought merids weren’t.

It was easier to lift stones and coral underwater, but Miyei wasn’t as quick swimming as the merids were. A single flick of their tails, and they were gone; she had to drag herself through the water. She didn’t belong here, and it was obvious. For days, she struggled to keep up with the merids, doing what they asked of her - she had no choice! And by the end of a week, the younger mermaids (not the babies, but the children) were brave enough to whirl around her, taunting her in their weird language.

“Go away,” she snarled at them, a time or two, feeling her face flush. She didn’t like being made fun of.

“Aww, they’re having fun,” Resh said, appearing behind her. “They aren’t faster than the adults. Let them mock you.”

“Why?!”

“Because they’re children, and they’re having _fun,”_ Resh replied. “Honestly. Were you ever a child, or were you born grumpy?”

Miyei was worried about her fleet. The _Blue Bone_ had been destroyed, she knew, and half her fleet with it. Where were they now? Had they chosen a new captain, a new queen? Would they try to find her? Or would they assume she was gone? Where was her life now, all remnants of it sunk beneath the waves? _And myself with it,_ she thought, looking up to the glittering surface far above. _I’m down here, too._

No one came looking for her. It was as if the world above the surface ceased to exist. Everything was the ocean: the coral, the merids, the water that she breathed. Everything. The ocean became the only thing that mattered. Two weeks. Three. A month. Two months.

The merids stopped being so afraid and wary of her, after a time. She’d long since lost that piece of metal, and she didn’t use her knife as a weapon - it was a tool, nothing more. They even seemed to be okay with her presence around. Resh almost seemed to _like_ her.

And then the storm.

It was sudden. The first news they got of it was a crack of thunder over the ocean miles away that they could hear, even from the caverns. All the merids started, and looked up; Miyei, who’d picked up a little bit of their language, could understand what they were saying. A storm? Approaching? They hadn’t thought there would be one. Merids could feel when storms came. But they hadn’t felt this one.

She swam out of the cavern and found Resh as quickly as possible. “There’s a storm coming,” she told the mermaid, as if she didn’t know.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Resh said, but her face was more worried than irritated. “That shouldn’t happen. And we didn’t call that.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some of your old friends, who knows.”

The storm came. Miyei had never seen a storm from below before. She thought that perhaps the wind would be dulled underwater, that it would simply be a lovely light-show. She couldn’t have been more wrong. The water became her enemy, roaring, twisting, tearing sand and plants up from the seabed. Fish hid inside the rocks and corals, but even those weren’t safe. The water ripped at the reef like a sea serpent.

Resh hauled boulders in front of a cavern where several merid families had fled for refuge. "Bring more!" she bellowed when she saw Miyei. "Seal it up, keep them safe!"

"I will," Miyei called back, and then the storm ripped away any further words she could have said. She had a split second to think before a wave came roaring in. A whirl of water caught a rock and sent it hurtling away towards the mermaid.

The last thing Miyei remembered was trying to warn her. "Resh!" She remembered shouting, and then there was water, and sound, and -

* * *

Miyei woke on the shore. Wet sand on her cheeks. Air blowing above her. When she raised herself up, she was seized by a fit of coughing and choking; water in her lungs trying to escape, to be replaced with air. _Air. I’m alive. I’m on land._

There were voices in the distance. Miyei dragged herself to her knees - she was so heavy, so clumsy here! - and spat up water. It didn’t sting like she thought it would.

Voices drew closer, and Miyei sat back on her heels and turned her face to the sun. She breathed in, deep - deeper than she should have. The air felt like nothing. She breathed too much, and it sent her coughing again.

By the time she recovered, she was surrounded by people. “Queen!” someone shouted. “Queen, Kulari’s breath, you’re _alive!_ “

Those must be from her fleet. Her crew. The ones that made it out before the storm. She tried to breathe lightly - had it always been this easy? No, she was simply used to the water, which resisted her, which supported her, not this place of air and dead sound where she had to drag herself along through nothing - and looked at them.

“Queen,” one of them started, and then the words died in their mouth. They stared at her, eyes wide, faces pale. Miyei paused. Something was wrong. She raised a hand to her face.

She hadn’t noticed it before, not with how heavy she felt freed from the tides, but there was a strange weight to her head. She ran her hand along her face, her cheeks. There was a strange, smooth ridge of hard bone rising from her cheeks, sweeping up above her ears. There, again, alongside her eyebrows - and from her forehead as well.

Miyei staggered to her feet and turned towards the nearest sailor. In one swift movement she lunged forward and grabbed for the hilt of his blade, unsheathing it fully. He yelped and leaped back, but she only raised the sword and stared into the mirror-bright blade.

Coral. It was coral. It split from beneath her skin and surrounded her face like a portrait frame, or a halo, hanging about above her head. It was oddly smooth for coral, and solid, but there was no mistaking that intricate patterning or that dull olive green color.

Miyei stared for a moment longer, then dropped her hand and threw the blade into the wet sand. It stuck point-first and hilt-up, quivering where it landed. “Gather everyone,” she rasped, her voice rough with salt and sand. “Every ship. We empty the strongholds. No one remains in the Islands after three days’ time.”

“What?” said one pirate, staring. “Queen, we can’t -”

“We can,” she interrupted him, a low growl. “Every person here leaves. Do you understand me?”

“Queen,” someone started, and she whirled to face them, her black hair flying around her. Sand sprayed onto the ground. The sailor went quiet.

“Good,” she said. “Let’s go. I need a new ship.”

Miyei looked to the water. It glittered so bright it nearly blinded her, but she swore for a moment she caught sight of a dark-haired head vanishing between one swell-peak and the next.

* * *

The Topaz Islands are a sacred place. They are holy by all of the goddesses of the sea, protected by a living fleet that has held its vow for thousands of years. No nation can capture them. No fleet can break through their waters. There is no ship upon the sea that may enter them and live to tell the tale.

The fleet that guards them is eternal, and its captain, they say, has been alive since its founding. They say that instead of blood she has saltwater and kelp-fiber. They say that she speaks the merids’ tongue. They say that if you intrude into the place she has given her soul to protect, that even Kulari’s blessing could not protect you from her retribution.

Her name is Miyei, and she is the queen of nothing, for the sea itself needs no crown.


End file.
